Friday, August 10, 2012

Estonian cookie cake (küpsisetort)

Here's a true Estonian classic - a layered cookie cake. If you've been reading Nami-Nami blog, you may remember that an Estonian cookie cake was also featured at the festive spread we served for Average Betty few weeks ago. It's a popular cake on children's birthday parties and on September 1st (the day all Estonian kids go back to school).

I suspect these are the main reasons for its popularity:
* There are just a few ingredients.
* It's pretty cheap and affordable.
* It's yummy :)
* There are endless variations - you can use different flavoured cookies, different cream, different decorations.
* The cake takes about 10-15 minutes to assemble, and every kid can make it, even small ones.

The cookie cake above was made with the help of my 3,5 year old daughter - she did all the cookie-dipping and cookie-placing, I was left with spreading the sour cream between the layers. And she's made this cake before - here's a family portrait taken in January - few days before our son's first birthday and few weeks before our daughter's third birthday:

Photo by Hele-Mai Alamaa (Pere & Kodu) as part for the cover story back in February.

I make two main versions - one with halva and sour cream filling, the other with plain sour cream filling. That's right - plain, unflavoured sour cream - the cookies are sweet enough and there's absolutely no need to sweeten the cream that goes between the cookies. However, there are lots of people who add thinly sliced bananas between the layer, but I haven't tried that myself. I guess I like the classics remain classic :)

As far as the cookies go, you need rectangular unfilled cookies - either plain or chocolate-flavoured or any other flavour you like. The cookies shouldn't be more than 5-6 mm (1/4-inch) thick. In Estonia any flavour produced and distributed by Estonian Kalev or Latvian Selga would work, elsewhere you could try with Bahlsen Leibniz's Butter Biscuits, orLU's Le Petit Beurre biscuit cookies, for instance.

Sounds familiar? There's a similar, yet different popular cake in Germany, called Keller Kuchen (Cellar cake) or Kalter Hund (Cold Dog), or radiokaka in Sweden, where butter cookies are layered with chocolate and coconut butter cream.

NB! Make this cake at least 4 hours earlier, preferably day before, so the sour cream has time to soften the cookies and make the cake more cakey. You can top the cake with chocolate glaze and decorate it just half an hour before serving.

Dip 12 to 15 cookies into the milk or coffee and place onto a suitable cake tray (I usually use 3x5 cookies or 15 in total, depending on your cake tray, you may prefer 3x4 pattern, resulting in 12 servings).
Now spread about a third of the sour cream evenly on top of the cookies. Continue with 3 more cookie and 2 more sour cream layers, finishing with the cookie layer.
Cover the cake with a cling film and place into the fridge to soften.

To make the chocolate glaze, break the chocolate into pieces and place into a small saucepan with butter and fresh cream. Slowly heat on a medium heat, stirring regularly, until the glaze is smooth and glossy. Spoon over the cake, spreading it evenly all over the top. (If using shredded coconut or pearl sugar for garnish, do it now, so it sticks into the chocolate glaze). Place back into the fridge to harden.

To serve, cut the cake into neat squares (or rectangles, if your cookies weren't square), or smaller slices, if you prefer. Garnish with berries, if you wish (I used the wonderful green variety of blackcurrants, Vertti, that I was talking about in a recent post).

Here's exactly the same cake, using chocolate-flavoured cookies and garnished with crispy pearl sugar granules:

Latvians make a version of this a lot :) I haven't tried to make it since going vegan, but I remember clearly from my childhood - Selga cookies (which you've mentioned in the article as well), and cream or, sometimes, yoghurt as a filling, sometimes cottage cheese. Sometimes we added marmalade pieces, raisins, etc in the filling. The most important thing - to leave it for at least several hours :)Gosh, my mouth is watering, I have to make a vegan version of this :D

I do a similar cake, chocolate graham crackers, layers whipped cream instead of sour cream, with a layer of fruit, then "frosted" with whipped cream and frozen. But I love the looks of this with the chocolate on top!

Tere Pille! My Estonian son turned 14 today. I had been planning to make this cake for him since I saw this post. Finding square or rectangular cookies in the US is very hard! The only ones I could find were spice cookies. The smell reminded me of Old Town at Christmas. Instead of chocolate, I used coffee for the frosting.

Anon. - that's a rather fancy version you're making!! I've made curd cheese cream versions before, but over the years have come to love this plainest version. But I do alternate chocolate and vanilla cookies sometimes!

Ilse - eks ole :)

Gitta - you'd be welcome!

Evi - need to look up those Social Tea biscuits one day!

Leena - aren't Maria biscuits round?

Gretchen - thick Greek yogurt would work as well, indeed. It's only now slowly becoming available in Estonia, however, and still just in Tallinn, so sour cream is still most popular.

Dianne - kas tegid küpsisetorti??

kketchupz - did you come up with a good vegan version??

Alanna - intrigued, for sure!

Anon - glad to hear you enjoyed it!

ChichaJo - thank you, I'm blushing now :) I've been blessed indeed :)

Hovkonditorn, yummy tasty, Jeff - thank you!!

Alice - I'm so pleased to hear that your boy loved this! Spiced cookies would work as well, esp. as the filling is so simple, so it balances the spice a little.. Happy Birthday to your son from me, too!!